How to Use TVFool to Get the Best Television Reception

They say getting the best reception is more art than science, but there are some great tools that provide the hard data you need.

One of these is a site called TVFool.com. You might have heard mixed reviews about it, but the truth is that no other site (as of yet) offers so much information and assistance in helping you cut the cord with OTA reception.

I’m going to cover the basics of using the site, and address some popular criticisms.

One thing to note is that, although it provides a wealth of information that only an engineer could love, you need only use a subset of this to get an antenna set up and receiving the channels you want.

For beginners it’s definitely time well spent in getting acquainted with a world that many last saw in high school physics.

There are some compelling reasons to make it your first stop in all things reception, though.

Let’s take a look at TVFools’ negatives before turning to its main advantages.

Criticisms

The main issue with the site is its database of TV stations and channels, which may not be 100% accurate in all areas of the country.

While in most places it does provide accurate coverage, some users have noted (in the forum) discrepancies in the list of channels they receive.

The FCC spectrum repack — taking place between September 2018 to July 2020 — hasn’t helped matters, which is why it’s important to cross-reference the signal report’s list of stations with several other sources (which I’ll detail below).

TVFool is run by volunteers and you can post station discrepancies you find in the forum, which will eventually get incorporated in their database.

None of this is to say TVFool’s information is somehow unreliable.

Given the breadth of useful information it offers, it’s a good starting point for your antenna journey.

Noise Margin (NM)

Positive values mean your antenna should be able to pick it up — if the value is zero or negative, you’ll probably get no reception.

Note that stations in the gray band have negative values.

Estimating Reception with Noise Margin

Normally you use the noise margin as the starting signal power at the antenna, then add gains and subtract losses to arrive at a final value that’s hopefully positive.

For example, in estimating reception for KXAN-TV (noise margin of 77.2), you would add to this noise figure your antenna gain (say, 12 dB for a certain brand of outdoor antenna), then subtract interference from the forest outside your house (around -10 dB), from your 50-foot cable run (around -2.5 dB), and from physical connections between your cable and devices (around -1 dB).

Which Antenna’s Right For You?

Looking at the report, you’ll learn whether you need a directional antenna or not, as well as which frequencies you need to receive.

Directional or Not?

Directional Antennas

An outdoor antenna that’s directional (either multi- or unidirectional) has a narrow reception beam for picking up TV signals coming from a given direction.

This narrow focus, however, bestows some advantages in reception. Directional antennas are designed for maximizing gain from those directions, while reducing interference from others.

Due to this, a directional antenna often picks up stations in the yellow to red bands of your signal report’s station list (perhaps also in the gray band if conditions are right).

Omnidirectional Antennas

The other type of antenna is omnidirectional, with 360-degree reception.

These tend to have lower reception ranges than directional antennas due to correspondingly lower gain in all directions.

Indoor antennas are typically omnidirectional, with built-in preamplifiers to boot.

Where are TV Signals Coming From? (Hint: the Radar Plot)

Looking at the station list in the example above, all we’d need to pick up channels in the green band would be an indoor antenna, which would likely be omnidirectional and able to pick up nearby stations in all directions.

However, the stations in the red zone (real channels 46, 18, 10, and 26) require an outdoor antenna mounted on the roof.

Looking at the radar plot, three of these are relatively close together in the North — and the numbers you see in the plot are the real channel numbers for the stations.

If you wanted those stations, you might consider installing a rooftop unidirectional antenna (a Yagi type such as the RCA ANT751R antenna, which incidentally picks up both UHF and VHF frequencies) in addition to the indoor antenna mentioned previously.

Frequency Bands: UHF and VHF

Real channel numbers indicate the frequencies on which these channels are broadcast:

Real channel numbers 2 – 6: low VHF

Real channel numbers 7 – 13: high VHF

Real channel numbers 14 – 51: UHF

While the majority of digital broadcasts in the United States are UHF, you’ll notice that a few stations (see as well the example station list above) are broadcast on VHF.

What all this means is, you’ll want to note the real channel numbers of the stations you want to receive, and make sure to get an antenna that’s capable of receiving those frequencies.

You can find another useful graph at the bottom of the signal report, which plots your station list arrayed from low to higher frequencies against (decreasing) signal power:

Note the dBm column is actually the same “Pwr (dBm)” column in the list of stations above.

It’s predicted signal power of each channel at your location.

Positioning and Aiming Your Antenna

Both the radar plot and station list show you the relative directions and distances of surrounding transmission towers, and you can use these to orient and position your antenna.

You should orient it using the “Azimuth” column of the station list, along with a compass.

You can use either a real compass or an app on your smartphone.

The Azimuth column gives both true and magnetic values, but when using a compass you should use the magnetic values.

If aiming towards several towers that are grouped together on the radar plot, and having similar (but exactly equal) magnetic azimuth values, you may need some trial and error in finding the right orientation for maximum reception.

Make sure to rescan your channels on your TV or set-top box with each new orientation of the antenna to regenerate the list.

Summary

TVFool has many features for estimating reception but I’ve shown the critical ones that assist you in purchasing and setting up your antenna.

Besides the signal report, the site also offers Interactive Coverage Maps: color-coded visualizations of signal strength overlaid on a topographical map of your area (you access these by clicking on “Start Maps” on the front page).

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